On Tue, Nov 19, 2013 at 2:08 PM, Brian E Carpenter <brian.e.carpenter@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
-- On 20/11/2013 06:13, SM wrote:
...
> As mentioned above, there has been many announcements,
> meetings, etc. about Internet governance and most of them were motivated
> by well-meaning people. I am not aware of any positive outcome out of
> any of the efforts.
I'm not sure, given the origins and history of WSIS/WSIG (including the
WSIS session in Tunisia supported by the previous Tunisian regime), about
"most" being well-meaning. But never mind. I think there has actually been
one positive outcome of all the IGF blah-blah: a continued absence of
international treaties and regulations interfering with Internet technology
and deployment. Interference has occurred only on a national basis. What
we need is for this international non-interference to continue, even
post-Snowdenia.
Multi-stakeholder meetings, if they serve to prolong the non-interference,
may be a price we have to pay. It's particularly important to underline
that the response to pervasive surveillance should be better security
and privacy technology, not regulation or national solutions.
Well apart from the SCO treaty between Russia, China and the rest.
The problem with the current situation is that it is not stable. The governments have a necessary interest in protecting access to the net. If that need is not met they are going to find a way to smash the whole governance system up to get what they need. And once it is smashed they are going to take what they want as well.
There are two problems in the current standards process, both to do with lack of stakeholder recognition. There is by design no recognition of any government interest other than the US government interest as seen by the departments of Commerce and "Defense". I don't think that denying governments the ability to protect their legitimate and necessary interest of protecting their access to the Internet serves the interest of preventing those governments from pursing an illegitimate interest in political censorship.
And no, given the recent attempts of the Italian government to block access to opposition news and the idiotic antics of Cameron et. al., I don't think censorship is a problem limited to tinpot dictatorships.
There is no recognition of necessary stakeholder interests either. Which is the principal reason for the failure of IPv6 deployment thus far: there is no representation of the ISP stakeholders whose participation is required for deployment.
Note here that 'representation' is distinct from 'the option to participate as individuals but not speaking for anyone but themselves'.
Website: http://hallambaker.com/